


Give Me A Reason To Believe (Failboats In Love)

by Acadjonne



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Adjusting to human life, Alternate Universe - Fae, Basically what happens when a human raised by fae is set loose on the world, Changelings, Failboats In Love, Fairy Creatures, Falling In Love, Families of Choice, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Magic, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 22:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acadjonne/pseuds/Acadjonne
Summary: On the night of October 31st, Linda and Frank Iero welcome a baby boy into their family. He weighs six pounds, four ounces, and is nineteen inches long. They give him a family name, and he becomes the third Iero man to bear the name of Frank.A year later, on All Hallow's Eve, a sleeping baby is taken from his crib and replaced with a fake. The babe will later be taken from the hands of the goblin that stole him, and he will be raised by two rowan treefolk, a house brownie, and some pixies.-----When Ray walks down the stairs to the Way family basement, the last thing Mikey expects to see is a scrappy and long-haired form following behind him. But as he later finds out, Frank is almost always unexpected in the best of ways, the rest of the world be damned.





	Give Me A Reason To Believe (Failboats In Love)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know who I should "blame" for this. Probably myself, I dunno. This came about after I finally read scarredsodeep's fics, Jet Black Crow and Boys Time Can't Capture, and subsequently dug out my field guide and began plotting.
> 
> Let's hope this isn't shit, I guess.

The thing about Frank Iero is that while he is human, he never knew the world of humans.

He was born Frank Anthony Iero, Jr., to a human couple called Linda and Frank, one fateful Halloween night. He spent some time with his human parents, maybe a year, before Halloween night rolled around again and Frank wasn't with his human parents anymore.

A wood elf called Nusriso found Frank in the clutches of a goblin, about to be brought to the ogre Balcorus as part of a feast for All Hallow's Eve. Nusriso dispatched of the goblin and brought Frank back to her Queen's court, where he would be safe until it could be decided what to do with him. By morning light, word had spread that several new changelings had been left with the parents of infants taken for Balcorus' feast, one of which was left with Frank and Linda Iero. Because they could not risk bringing baby Frank back home, the Seelie Queen Nari gave him to her court to raise.

Frank, for the most part, is raised by a pair of rowan treefolk who are strong and loyal. They are in the same small area, but far enough apart that Frank can only be with the manifestation of one of them at a time. The younger is called Zenivrah, and she often stands in the shadow of her tree, simply watching Frank. The older of the two is Eralne, who enjoys picking Frank up when he's small enough to do so, climbing up the branches with him and telling him the best ways to reach the top. During the winter months, Zenivrah and Eralne are dormant, so he stays with a brownie called Tandy, who lives in an abandoned house near the trees. Once spring comes, Frank is back with the treefolk until the first snowfall the following winter.

In between these cycles, Frank spends a lot of time playing games in the fields with some pixies living nearby. A few are smaller than even he is when he first joins them, though there are two who are the stature of human children. Frank eventually outgrows them, too, but between the pixies and Eralne, he develops a mischievous streak as he ages.

The pixies often steal food from humans for Frank to eat, though sometimes he eats food gotten from deals between Seelie courtiers and humans. Most of what Frank eats is plant-based, though sometimes he gets other treats, like chocolates and breads and even once a cake he made himself sick on.

Being a human child among the fae is like having a glowing, flashing sign to point out Frank's delicate mortality. He often gets sick during the winter months, and he isn't as durable as the fae around him for all that he's rough and tumble. A few times when he's young, Tandy had to get a local limnade to heal his sickly lungs. Tandy always made sure to have something to trade for his help, but Frank didn't trust the limnade. He felt like he was being looked at funny.

The fae do try their best to help Frank, to raise him up and help him grow and learn. During his eighth year, Tandy begins to teach Frank to read and write, and by his tenth year, he's exhausted the entire aging collection within the brownie's house. Two leprechaun brothers teach him arithmetic, in exchange for his help with making shoes for Queen Nari's soldiers. He learns from the pixies he plays with how to find berries and plants in the woods, and which are safe to eat. A hobgoblin teaches Frank to build temporary shelters from tree branches and leaves, and a nixie instructs him from the mouth of her stream on how to tell when fresh water is nearby.

Frank learns to live, and to thrive. Frank learns to survive.

The one thing he can never learn, no matter how much he tries, is about the human world.

Even as he approaches his twentieth year among the fae, he is forbidden from going much farther than the edge of Tandy's front fence alone. He has never passed the rotting wood gate to the north of the house. No fae will go with him, and none will take him. Any time he's tried to leave by himself, he's been caught and scolded. Frank swears there's still a slight divot in his elbow where Tandy poked him a touch too hard with her needle before he could calm her back from a boggart to a brownie again.

There aren't any other humans among the fae of Queen Nari's court, and there haven't been any since before Frank came to them. Zenivrah had once told Frank that prior to his arrival, possibly even just prior to his birth, a young human girl had been called to Queen Nari's company on All Saint's Day and offered the choice to return to the human world. She had chosen to leave, and never kept in touch with the fae who'd raised her after her parents' deaths. Frank had often wondered, as he grew, if he'd be offered the same choice.

And now, on All Hallow's Eve of his twentieth year, he has just received word that he too is to stand before Queen Nari on All Saint's Day, just in the morning.

Frank steels himself, and goes to Tandy for help looking presentable.

* * *

 

The thing about Queen Nari is that for as little as Frank's seen her in all his years, she's been well-discussed among the fae who raised him.

Queen Nari is a wood elf, a head taller than her peers and thin like a tree branch. She stands tall and proud, with a blank stare on her pale face. After four hundred years in the sun, she is freckled, across her cheeks and shoulders and arms. Her loose blonde ringlets fall nearly down the same length as her wings, and she has a crown of flowers and leaves upon her brow. Her skirts are made of flower petals in shades of whites and yellows, and her bodice of large green leaves. Around her left arm, she wears a bronze cuff, curling three times around her bicep like an off-colour vine.

The Seelie Queen is kind but fierce, doing what she thinks is best to protect her subjects while telling all those who would oppose her that she is not to be taken advantage of. She has ruled over her subjects for nearly four centuries when Frank kneels before her, still barely crossing the line between child and man.

Queen Nari has never spoken directly to Frank before this moment, and has only seen him once. She's only mentioned his name when she gave him as a babe to be raised, so many speculations have been passing around the court since she summoned Frank to be before her.

"Frank Anthony Iero, Jr.," says Queen Nari, "you have been with my court for two decades now. You were born of human parents, and by unfortunate circumstance, you were replaced with a changeling."

"That is correct," Frank agrees.

"For two decades, you have been treated as a guest among my Seelie court," says Queen Nari, "raised by the rowans, taught by the brownie, entertained by the pixies. We have treated you well, and you have rarely been left wanting."

"That is correct," Frank repeats.

"For some time, you have asked about humans. For some time, we were unable to allow you into the human world, but today, I offer you a choice." Queen Nari, gentle and fierce, squares her shoulder and straightens her back. "If you wish it, you may be brought into the human world to live out your life. You may carve your own path, and live freely among your own kind.

"Or," says Queen Nari, "you may choose to remain among the fae. If you stay, you will never venture past our territories. You will never know of humanity's faults and follies."

"And if I go?" Frank asks.

"You are free to do as you please. We would ask that you keep in contact, but no consequence will come if you choose to cut all ties to the fae."

Long moments pass, filled with absolute silence, while Frank deliberates. For Frank, the thinking feels like an eternity, but for the fae around him, it's barely the blink of an eye.

"I wish to live among the humans," Frank decides.

"If you wish it," declares Queen Nari.

"I do wish it," declares Frank.

The court erupts into noise.

* * *

 

Once the chaos of Queen Nari's court has been settled, she calls forth one of her soldiers to bring Frank to the human world.

The soldier who steps forth is Redushut, the son of the wood elf Nusriso who found Frank two decades past. Redushut is one of the younger wood elves, and the youngest of the soldiers. He appears to be younger than even Frank, though he approaches his eightieth year on the guard.

"Take Frank to the Toro home, Redushut," commands Queen Nari. Redushut nods, silent, and begins to lead Frank away.

Frank is permitted to return to say a final goodbye to Zenivrah and Eralne, the latter of whom seems like he doesn't want to let Frank leave his embrace.

" _You are always free to return to us,_ " says Eralne, his voice carried in the autumn breeze, deep and soft. Zenivrah is quieter, more apathetic, but in a rare moment of affection, she presses her lips to Frank's forehead in a gentle kiss.

" _We are here if you should ever need us,_ " she promises. Frank squeezes her hand and hugs Eralne again.

Tandy's goodbye is much more tearful, but she tries to stop herself from crying. She has a gift for Frank, a token to wish him luck as he parts with them.

"I know how much you like it, so I thought it best you should take it," she tells him, placing the object into his palm.

It's a piece of tortoise shell, triangular in shape, not much bigger than a silver coin. The humans who used to inhabit Tandy's house used it to play music, but Frank has never quite figured out how.

"Thank you, Tandy," Frank says, closing his palm around the tortoise shell, "I appreciate the gift."

Redushut leads Frank off the property and through the north gate after that. He seems to know where he's going, though he doesn't speak to tell Frank anything about their destination. Frank follows silently as he can, stepping in Redushut's footprints and avoiding thorns and twigs across the path.

The trees thin out after an hour or so, and then it's quick onto a new type of turf. The ground beneath Frank's bare feet is warm and solid, just this side of comfortable beneath his feet under the afternoon sun. Along this greying path are houses, in styles and shapes and colours Frank's never seen before. The houses have short paths with large enclosed carts, resting without mule or horse to pull them, in as many colours as the houses and then some.

Redushut leads Frank up a small hill path, to a house about the size of Tandy's, with sheer curtains in the windows and a white metal door. The wood elf knocks on the door, the frame of which is nearly as tall as he, and steps back, nearly knocking Frank down.

For a few moments, nothing happens. Then, there's a muffled voice, high and distant, before thudding footsteps approach the door. It opens inwards, revealing a man nearly as tall as Redushut. He has human features, except for his ears, long and elven where they are visible beneath his impressive mound of brown curls. He looks from Redushut to Frank, and back to Redushut, an eyebrow raised.

"Uh, hi?"

"Queen Nari has asked I bring Frank to the Toro home." It's not much in way of an explanation, but the curly haired man sighs, and opens the door wider.

"You've found the Toro home, alright. Come inside."

* * *

 

When Gerard's phone goes off and he announces that it's Ray, he and Mikey don't think much of it. They haven't seen Ray in a few days, so he might be calling them to hang out. Gerard answers the call, immediately putting the phone on speaker.

"Hi Ray!" Gerard calls down the line. Mikey gives his own greeting.

"Are you guys at home?" Ray asks, and his voice sounds stressed and maybe a little bit panicked. There's also a voice Mikey can't quite make out in the background, maybe two, which are unfamiliar. He raises his eyebrow. Gerard shrugs.

"Yeah, Ray, why?"

"I'll be right over. Just wait for me. It's important." The line goes dead. Ten minutes later, Donna Way answers the door to let Ray into the house.

When Ray walks down the stairs to the Way family basement, the last thing Mikey expects to see is a scrappy and long-haired form following behind him. It looks kinda like a dude, with either the longest dreadlocks Mikey's ever seen on a white guy or just plain horrible black hair, way more stubble than you'd ever want to see on a guy that young, and a mischievous look in his eyes. He's easily dwarfed by Ray even as he stops on the last step of the staircase, and his clothes only exacerbate the appearance of being absolutely tiny. Actually, it looks like he's wearing a shirt that Gerard's been claiming he lost for two months and a pair of Ray's tiniest sweatpants. He has no shoes on his feet, though he doesn't let that slow him down, even despite all the crap on the floor. Actually, he seems a bit enthralled with all the crap on the basement floor, which currently ranges from Gerard's dirty underwear to comics Mikey has thrown around looking for a specific issue of X-Men, to dried up paint brushes and broken markers. Ray tugs the guy back by the collar of his borrowed shirt.

"Frank, these are the Way brothers, Mikey and Gerard. Mikey, Gerard, this is Frank. A wood elf dropped him off on my doorstep," explains Ray, still holding Frank by the collar. Frank, for his part, waves at Mikey and Gerard.

"Is he a changeling, then?" Asks Gerard, because of course he does.

"I'm not a changeling!" Frank says, at the same time Ray sighs, "he's not a changeling."

"I'm human," Frank says, "but I was raised by the fae."

Thank god for Ray Toro, who intervenes between Frank's declaration and Gerard's inevitable questions. "The wood elf who brought him told me that I had to help him adjust to human life."

"Why?" Mikey asks, because seriously, _what_?

"I think he-" Frank cuts Ray off.

"I can speak for myself, you know. I'm not an imbecile." There's a spark in his eyes, something like fire, and Mikey takes note to try never to find out what would happen if Frank really were angry instead of just annoyed. The fae are notorious for their tempers, Elena made sure he and Gee knew that. It would only be logical to think Frank isn't much different.

"Alright, Frank," says Mikey, carefully blank, "why does Ray have to help you adjust to human life, or whatever?"

So Frank tells them. "I was kidnapped by a goblin when I was a baby, then rescued by a wood elf who brought me to Queen Nari's court. I was raised by a couple of rowan treefolk and a house brownie because I couldn't be returned to my parents. I'd been with the fae for twenty years, so I guess since they thought I would be fine on my own, Queen Nari let me choose if I wanted to stay or if I wanted to join other humans."

"So you chose to live among us humans," Gerard finishes. Frank nods.

"Yes. Queen Nari had one of her soldiers bring me to Ray's house, because so many of his family members are fae too."

"He can't stay at my house, though," Ray chimes. "You guys have met my family. We're literally all changelings, there's no way we're going to be able to help him. I couldn't just leave him on his own, you know how the fae are, but I can't help him."

Gerard shoots a sidelong glance at Mikey. There isn't really much they can do themselves right now either. Mikey's moving out in a few days, into a shitty apartment that's way too cheap to be safe to live in, but fuck if Mikey can afford anything better. Besides, their parents are kinda cool, but not cool enough to indefinitely take in a stranger just because. Mikey and Gee might be cool on the whole fae thing, but their mother never really believed Elena's story. Their father doesn't even _know_.

"I mean, we can't do much, but he can crash here for a _couple_ of days, maybe," says Gerard. "We can figure out something more permanent later."

Frank launches himself at the Way brothers, full force, with thanks falling from his lips like they've just saved him from a sinking ship. Gerard shoots Ray a look.

Ray just laughs at them.

* * *

 

A "couple" of days at the Way house ends up actually being five.

Mikey spins a story to his mother about Frank's parents kicking him out when he lost his job, and by some miracle, she buys it. Mikey doesn't know if he's that good a liar or if it's just something his mother sees when she looks at Frank, but she agrees to a week.

On his second day at the Way house, Frank decides he wants to go out and explore his new surroundings. He refuses to have Mikey or Gerard come with him, claiming he'll be able to find his way back on his own, but then Ray saves the situation by offering to show Frank some of the cool places he knows. While Ray and Frank are out, Mikey finishes packing up his things, and spends maybe way too long looking at his empty childhood bedroom.

That night, Frank crashes on the basement couch between Mikey and Gerard as they watch old Romero movies. Gerard had made the decision early on that Frank's first introduction to human culture would be the shitty movies Mikey and Gee grew up watching, and so far, he's liked them all. It also gives Gerard a reason to talk through the whole movie, explaining plot points and offering up facts which Frank absorbs like a fucking sponge. Gerard actually falls asleep mid-sentence during Dawn of the Dead, his head lolling onto Mikey's shoulder. Frank himself falls asleep not too long after Gerard, with his head and one arm leaning precariously over the arm of the couch, and his knees curled up to his chest. Mikey waits until the movie's over before resting his head on Gerard's and closing his eyes.

Frank wakes them both up the next morning when the sun rises, demanding coffee. That's the second thing Gerard showed him, and Mikey severely regrets it for a few minutes as he shuffles upstairs like a zombie. It's too early to be awake, and it's definitely too early to leave the basement, but whatever. Coffee first, complaining later.

When they all three shuffle into the kitchen, Gerard lets out a happily disgruntled sound at the sight of the coffee pot, nearly full of fresh black coffee. He dives for a mug, drinking almost the whole thing in one breath, before he makes any move to pass Mikey or Frank their own mugs. Mikey does almost the same with his first mug, and with his second, before he really feels awake. Frank just takes his time, sipping at his coffee while he watches Mikey and Gerard, amused at their desperate attempts to consume all the coffee.

Being awake early enough to actually have breakfast is something Mikey hasn't done in a long time, but he's familiar enough with Poptarts to make those no matter what time of day it is. He's careful to make sure Frank is paying attention, and gives him a brief explanation about the goodness of toaster pastries as he puts them in to cook. Just as he's about to take them out of the toaster with a fork, though, his mother walks into the kitchen and catches sight of him.

"Michael James Way," she shouts, "you will put that fork down this instant!"

By now, Mikey knows better than to fight, so he does as she asks and watches her take the Poptarts out in a safer way. She mutters under her breath all the while.

"You know, I shouldn't be letting you move out on your own if you can't even make breakfast on your own, but it's too late to stop you now. I just hope your roommate will be more sane than you are, I swear." Donna pauses for a moment, holding onto the plate with Mikey's Poptarts. "Did you find a roommate yet, Mikey?"

He ducks his head. "Uh. No?"

Donna Way has a way of sighing that makes anyone in the vicinity feel as if they've disappointed her. "What am I going to do you with, Mikey, Jesus."

The entire time this exchange has been going on, Gerard has been sitting at the table munching on a piece of toast. "What about Frank," he says, around a bite of his food.

"What about me?" Asks Frank. Gerard swallows his mouthful.

"You don't really have a place of your own, Mikey's got a spare room and no roommate. You could stay with him, at least for a while, right Mikes?"

And Gerard _is_ right, it doesn't need to be said. And Mikey's thought about it for the past few days, of offering to let Frank stay with him, but he doesn't know Frank all that well, and if he agrees to let him stay then Mikey won't be able to find a roommate to help him with the rent. It's not exactly like Frank is going to be getting a job anytime soon, and even if he could, it wouldn't exactly be paying six figures. So, Mikey didn't bring it up, but now Gerard has, and his mother is looking between the three of them like it's the best damn thing she's ever heard. He knows that if he says yes, things might somehow turn out at least mostly okay. If he says no, though, his mother will never shut up about it, especially since Mikey was the one who lied about why Frank was staying with them in the first place.

Mikey takes the plunge. "Yeah, sure, Gee. Why not?"

And so, Mikey's officially roommates with a guy raised by a couple of trees.

* * *

 

As far as roommates go, Frank isn't shit, at least.

He's sort of used to having a roof over his head, sometimes, from the winters he spent in Tandy's house, but that's about the gist of his familiarity. He's never had access to showers, or toilets, or toasters, or even beds.

His first four nights in the apartment, Frank crashes wherever he lands, and wakes up with the sunrise. The first night, it's the couch, then it's sitting at the shitty kitchen table Ray found for them, and then two nights in the bathtub. Mikey really doesn't understand the context behind how and why Frank slept in the bathtub twice, but damn if he isn't impressed. That fucking thing is the most uncomfortable surface in their whole apartment, and that includes Mikey's bed, which is currently just a box spring because he needs Ray's help to assemble the bed frame and move the mattress.

On the fifth day, though, Elena drags Mikey and Frank into a furniture store to buy Frank a proper bed. Gerard had told her, because why wouldn't he, that Mikey had taken in a fucking changeling. Of course, Elena decided to take it upon herself to come by and meet Frank for herself, and when she found that they hadn't even gotten him a bed, took matters into her own hands.

And, don't get him wrong, Mikey loves his grandmother. She's awesome, and he wouldn't trade her for the world, but while she means well, sometimes she's a bit much. If Ray hadn't already let Frank borrow one of his old acoustic guitars, Elena would go out and buy Frank a guitar too. Frank's been talking Mikey's ear off about not being able to give Elena anything in return for the bed since she forced him into her car, if he was getting a guitar too, Mikey'd really consider homicide. Or suicide.

Mikey is thankful when Elena pulls up to a small family owned store instead of Ikea or something, because Frank might actually get lost in a giant store like that. Or bolt. Or get lost while trying to bolt.

It doesn't take long before they've found Frank a bed. He chooses a simple frame, made of wood, with a bookcase built into the headboard and a singular drawer on the right side. Because of the way the frame is made, it doesn't need a box spring, just a mattress. Elena pays for everything and Mikey gives them his address for when they deliver the bed frame and the mattress.

Frank's bed ends up being put together a full week before Mikey's, but you'd never know it being in their apartment at night. He still finds the stupidest places to fall asleep. He does start sleeping later into the mornings, though, partly due to Mikey covering all the windows in the apartment at night. One morning, Gee comes over and walks into the kitchen, only to find Frank sprawled out on top of the kitchen table, dead asleep with his head leaning off the edge. Mikey walks onto the scene a minute later to find Frank rubbing his head while Gerard laughs his ass off, having come running after hearing a thump and a yell.

"What the fuck," says Mikey, who has yet to ingest any coffee, and doesn't feel quite like he really exists yet. The world is still blurry. Mikey doesn't even know if he even has his glasses on.

"Gee woke me up!" Frank yells, and Gerard is still wheezing, arms wrapped around his ribs. Mostly, his laughing is turning to giggles, but it hasn't stopped quite yet. He does manage to get himself under control eventually, though, and explains the situation to Mikey, who snorts into his coffee mug.

"You should have seen him when he first moved in. I went to take a piss in the middle of the night and he was conked out in the fucking tub like it was memory foam or something." Mikey says. Gerard starts laughing again.

Mikey downs the rest of the pot of coffee singlehandedly before he has to start getting ready for work, and as it turns out, he _didn't_ actually put on his glasses when he got up. He actually finds them on the coffee table, between a three day old bowl of Lucky Charms and the book Frank was reading yesterday morning. As Mikey's about to step out of the apartment to begin his trek to work, Frank latches onto his back in a brief hug.

"See you later, Frank," Mikey says.

* * *

 

Frank's first experience using Google isn't exactly pleasant.

Frank has been learning guitar with minimal help from Gerard and a lot of help from Ray, but he can't really learn much on his own if neither of them are around. As a result, Gerard has taken it upon himself to spend a day teaching Frank how to appropriately use the internet. Most of the morning was spent watching Why Would You Put That On The Internet videos, at first because Gerard thought it would help, and then eventually just because Frank couldn't stop laughing at them and didn't let Gerard find something else.

But in the afternoon, with the Ways and Ray sitting a few feet away on the couch and a borrowed acoustic in his lap, Frank has control of the laptop, and he's staring the Google search engine straight on.

In all seriousness, Frank just means to look up some tabs. Ray said he'd teach Frank how to read tabs so he could practice on his own. He'd had a bunch of songs in his head that he wanted to try to learn a few minutes ago, but they've all slipped his mind now that he actually has the ability to search for them. There's another thing he's been thinking of searching for, though.

Frank looks over the top of the laptop screen at the guys, all sitting on the couch and distracted from what he's doing. If he finds anything, he can just keep it to himself. They don't have to know.

So, Frank clicks on the search bar and starts typing in his name. Frank Anthony Iero, Jr.

The top result is for an obituary, and Frank clicks on it. The image of a young child greets him, smiling brightly, just above a name and a set of dates.

_Frank Anthony Iero, Jr., October 31, 1996 - July 23, 2002_

_IERO, Frank Anthony, Jr. - Age 5, of Belleville, New Jersey, passed away following a car accident on Friday, July 19th. Iero died of his injuries while in hospital on Tuesday morning. Frank was a calm child, loved by his family and well-liked by the neighbourhood children. Frank was the son of Linda and Frank Iero, Sr. He is survived by his parents, his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Funeral mass will be held in St. Mary's Church in Belleville on Saturday, July 27th, at 11am._

Frank blinks, tears in his eyes. He's dead, as far as his parents know. The changeling who took his place _died_. Everyone thinks he's **_dead_**.

"Frank? Are you okay?" Mikey asks. Frank slams the laptop shut, and wipes at his eyes.

"I'm fine," Frank grits out. Ray and Gerard are watching him now, too. Frank is determined not to cry.

"Are you sure? You seem-" Gerard starts, but Frank doesn't want to hear it.

"I said I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be? It's not like I have any reason to care." Frank pushes the guitar from his lap, probably being more rough with it than he should, and flops onto his side, crossing his arms. Ray gets up and comes to sit next to him, resting his arm against Frank's shoulder and rubbing it gently.

"Frank? Do you want to tell us what happened?" He asks softly. Frank huffs a bit, takes a deep breath. "You can take your time if you need to. We're not going anywhere."

Frank shifts until his head is resting in Ray's lap, and Ray moves his hand so that it's gently rubbing circles against Frank's back. Mikey has plopped down from the couch and to Ray's left, and Gerard follows, sitting behind Frank. Frank's own fingers curl into the hem of Ray's t-shirt, and he stays there for a few moments, just breathes. The tears are still there, but he fights them back. He doesn't have a reason to cry over this.

"He's dead," Frank says eventually, voice breaking a bit. "The changeling, the one who was with my parents. He died years ago." A few tears slip out, and then he can't stop them.

"Oh, Frank," Gerard coos, rubbing Frank's arm gently. Frank curls up further in Ray's lap.

"I just, kind of wanted to meet them? Or at least meet the changeling, maybe, talk with him. But he's- they- I can't."

"Frank. Hey, come here." This is Mikey now, who plucks Frank from Ray's lap and tugs him into a hug. Frank goes willingly, trying to stop his tears by pressing his face into Mikey's boney shoulder. Mikey holds him securely, not too tight and not too loose, and rocks him a little bit. He doesn't say anything, just holds Frank, and it's reassuring, just a bit. Because Frank has always had that idea in his head, of meeting his human family one day, and making up for lost time, but here in Mikey's arms, he thinks maybe this little family of Gee and Ray and Mikey and Frank is better than the ones he never knew.

* * *

 

The first time Frank ever gets drunk is alone in the apartment with Mikey.

Mikey has a bit of extra cash at the end of the week, so he decides to bring back some beer. Ray can't come by because he's busy, and Gee's still in that stage of his sobriety where he'd rather keep away from most substances that aren't cigarettes or coffee so Mikey can't call him either. Because Frank doesn't have an ID and none of them knew at first that he was 21, they've never taken him out with them in the few weeks he's been around.

Frank has never had alcohol in his life- like, ever. The fae don't feel the affects of human alcohol, and often don't like the taste of it either. They do make their own drinks, stronger than human alcohol and deadlier by tenfold. Even if it hadn't been deadly to him, the fae wouldn't have let a young child drink something that altered the mind and destroyed inhibitions. Fae may not be human, but they aren't uncivilized either.

The point is, Frank has no idea how many beers is too many, or how much they'll affect him, or how fast. But, Mikey has his own beer, and he offers one to Frank, so who is Frank to say no?

As it turns out, Frank is a fucking lightweight. One beer leaves him tipsy, the second makes him giggle at everything, the third leaves him unable to stand on his own, and by the fourth, he's tired, clingy, and entirely unintelligible. He's been muttering something into Mikey's ear since he plastered himself to Mikey ten minutes ago, and either he isn't speaking English anymore, or Mikey's more drunk than he thought he was.

Because Frank's so drunk, it's easy to push him back onto his own half of the couch, and for a while, Frank just sits on his ass babbling nonsense. He slowly moves closer as Mikey offers halfhearted noises of acknowledgement to him, until eventually he's clinging to Mikey again, half dozing but still talking.

"Alright, big guy. Might as well put you to bed, it's after two anyways." Mikey isn't exactly going to pass any field sobriety tests right now, but he walks in straighter lines than Frank does. Actually, Frank doesn't seem to be trying to walk beside Mikey more than he seems to be trying to climb onto his back, so Mikey just loops an arm around his waist and drags him into his room.

Leaning Frank against the wall so he can help him take off his jeans is probably one of the hardest tasks Mikey's tried to accomplish drunk, if only for how much Frank is squirming. Honestly, pants are a hit or miss thing for Frank, so the fact that he's managed to keep his jeans on this long is kind of a miracle. Eventually, though, Mikey gets Frank out of his jeans, and then into a pair of pajama pants. He decides the shirt Frank's had on all day is probably still fine for sleeping in, mostly because he's afraid Frank might break his glasses if Mikey gets too close to his hands right now.

Frank plops onto his bed with little resistance, and burrows under the covers one Mikey helps him lift them up. Jesus, Frank is drunk. After a few moments where Frank just lays there sprawled out in his bed, Mikey decides he's probably asleep, and turns back to the door.

"Mikey?" Frank asks. It's the most articulate thing Frank's said since he finished his first beer.

"Yeah, Frank?"

Frank rolls over to face the door. "Stay?" He asks. "Jus' til I fall asl'p?"

He seems almost childlike, like this. Like he's asking one of his parents to keep him safe from the monster under the bed, or the nightmares that woke him up. Mikey can't find a reason to say no. He plops down next to Frank, who crowds into Mikey's space, wraps around him like Mikey's the one who asked _him_ to stay. Once he's comfortable, Frank hums a short breath.

Mikey just stays there, maybe for several minutes, maybe for several hours. He watches Frank's ceiling, blank and white. He turns and tries to see if he can find the outline of the Star Wars blanket he put up to keep the sun out of Frank's room, then gives up and starts looking for the outline of the open door.

At some point, Frank's form has gone slack against Mikey's left side, and he's started snuffling in his sleep a bit. It's entirely too endearing for someone who was just drunk off his face a little while ago, and if Mikey were sober, he'd think he might be developing a crush on Frank. Of course, Mikey's drunk, and he's tired, and this isn't his bed, so he carefully extracts himself from Frank's loose grip and stumbles across the apartment to his own bed.

* * *

 

The next morning, Mikey's already taken some painkillers for the headache and started drinking his coffee when Frank stumbles out of his room. It's the first time Frank's woken up in his own bed. He doesn't remember falling asleep. He doesn't remember most of last night, actually. His head is killing him, though.

Mikey laughs when Frank tells him this. "You were completely gone on like, a beer and a half, but you kept going until you were four deep and kept climbing all over me. No wonder your head hurts. That, my friend, is called a hangover, and it happens when the alcohol leaves your system." Mikey isn't cruel, though, so he grabs a couple of Tylenol for Frank to take, and gives him a glass of water.

Much like alcohol, Frank has never come across any type of pill before, and stares at it like if he glares hard enough, it'll disappear. "What do I do with this?"

"You put them in your mouth, drink a bit of water, and swallow them." Frank does as told, but can't manage to swallow the pills. He spits them back out into his hand. (The first time Frank didn't like something and spit it out onto the floor, Donna Way yelled at him for ten minutes. He's made sure not to do it again.)

"I can't," says Frank, and Mikey sighs.

"Dude, it's easy. Just chug the water until the pills go down. Here, watch this," Mikey digs around until he finds a container of mints, and takes one out. He puts in his hand for Frank to see, before popping it into his mouth and drinking some of his coffee until he's swallowed it. "It's not that hard."

Frank tries again, twice, but can't get the pills down, so he throws them into the trash under the sink. "Forget this. I'm going back to bed."

Mikey can't help himself. He laughs as Frank stomps off.

* * *

 

One of Ray's biggest sources of stress these days is Frank.

Ray's worried about him. He hasn't brought up his parents since the first incident, though Ray assumes he's probably still keeping those feelings in. Hell, maybe he isn't, because he was raised fae and they're capricious as fuck but most of them don't hold on to grief for that long. A lot of them don't even show more than one emotion at once. But Frank is human, and humans bottle things up and don't deal with them and Ray's already dealt with the aftermath of shitty ways to not deal with emotions when Gerard went through it, he's not doing that again with Frank if it's still avoidable.

Ray would assume it'd still be avoidable at this point, given how Mikey's told him about Frank's first experience with alcohol. Apparently later the next day, once his headache had gone away, Frank had tried to dump the remaining few beers down the sink, afraid Mikey would make him drink them before they went bad. The whole concept of food being fresh longer in fridges still hasn't quite sunk in for Frank, it would seem.

Another thing that worried Ray is that Frank might not be able to do much with his life. As far as the government knows, Frank died as a kid, so he doesn't have any sort of ID, and no records. No medical, no dental, no vision. No school records. Frank is one smart cookie, no doubt that he was taught well, but you can't exactly apply for a job or for college by saying you learned to read and write from a house brownie and how to do basic math from a couple of leprechauns. The world doesn't work like that.

So yeah. Frank doesn't have an official identity among the American government, he doesn't have any sort of recognizable education, and he's completely unable to get a degree or a shitty job. Frank is stuck, and he doesn't even realize it. Then again, up until two months ago, Frank didn't own more than a tattered pair of pants and a shirt straight out of a cheesy pirate movie, and now he's regularly wearing skinny jeans and three t-shirts layered one on top of the other, so.

But Ray think about trying to help Frank find a job a lot. If he thought he could pull it off, he'd have fake papers made for Frank. However, since that's both outrageously expensive and extremely illegal, he isn't getting anywhere on that front. Besides, he doesn't really know what Frank would really want or be able to do anyway. The only things he's interested in are horror movies, cigarettes, and guitar.

Ray himself is two for three on those, and he happens to work in a music store, but the pay is kind of shit and he doubts his boss would be too thrilled if Ray asked him to hire his friend who, for all intents and purposes, doesn't _technically_ exist. Really, the best Ray can do is work his shitty job, attend his college classes, and try to have some extra cash after each paycheck to help Mikey and Frank out.

Frank seems determined to make himself sick, though, lately. He has this weird fascination with snow, and insists in trying to go out almost every day no matter the temperature, even though he doesn't have a proper winter jacket because Ray and the Ways are too poor to buy him one but refuse to ask Elena for anything for at _least_ three more years. (She'll probably buy him a better one than either Mikey or Gerard have for Christmas, though, knowing her.)

Today, he's won the battle, dragging Ray out onto the curb in front of his and Mikey's building to practice guitar together outside. There isn't any snow today, and the weather is at least mostly above freezing for now, so Ray crosses his fingers that Frank won't catch some kind of mutant cold like he's told them he has a tendency to get. If Frank got sick, Ray would probably blow a fuse.

Playing guitar outside in the middle of December isn't as bad as Ray would have expected. His fingers get a bit stiff with cold, but he plays through it, and it's kind of like a new exercise to test how dexterous he really is. Frank himself has on two pairs of fingerless gloves. One pair has skeletal hands on them and the other pair is just plain black. How he hasn't lost circulation in his hands from the two pairs of layered gloves, Ray doesn't know.

Frank has been steadily improving in his guitar playing, now that he can practice on his own instead of needing Ray to be there. Ray does still help him out, making sure he knows his chords and pentatonic scales and stuff. Ray will also usually give Frank the names of songs to learn, and Frank flies through them with reckless enthusiasm and a lot of free time.

Today, they're noodling a bit, with Frank just kind of messing around with chords and frets to see what sounds okay. Ray thinks that Frank might have messed around a bit with what he's playing before, because it seems too deliberate to be new. It's sweet, though, a gentle melody a bit like a lullaby. A bit repetitive, as though he doesn't know what to do next with it, but it's got potential.

Apparently some guy walking by thinks so too, because he drops a five dollar bill into Frank's open guitar case. Frank doesn't notice, just keeps playing, but Ray keeps an eye on the guitar case for a while after that. By the time they go back inside, a few more people have dropped money into the case, and the grand total is fifteen bucks. Frank seems entirely excited to show Mikey his earnings when he gets home, and he's got this glint in his eye like he's planning something.

Ray tries to think of how he could broach the subject of today's events with Mikey and Gerard without causing a fight.

* * *

 

It feels almost like one moment, Frank was being introduced to guys, and the next, the four of them turned around and Christmas was upon them.

Mikey and Frank don't really have any decorations, per se. The most "christmassy" thing in the apartment is Frank's borrowed guitar, which he hasn't been able to play for about four days because Gerard covered it in paper baubles and topped the whole thing with a star. Surrounding their sad excuse for a Christmas tree are gifts, which they'll open on Christmas day. Of the seven currently in the pile, four are for Frank, and three are _from_ him, which Frank is being twitchy about.

"There should at least be more than one gift under the tree for Mikey, too," Frank says. Gerard laughs.

"There'll be plenty of gifts for Mikey under the tree at our parents' house, Frank. Don't worry about it."

It's Frank's first time celebrating Christmas, so the guys are actually putting in more than just a half-assed effort to make it good for him. Ray brings over some of his mom's cooking in the days leading up to Christmas, and on the eve of, Ray and Gerard come over to spend the night. Frank ends up giving up his bed for Ray to sleep in, and Gerard crashes on the living room couch in his clothes.

Ray is the first to wake up on Christmas morning, and within a half hour, Frank, Gee, and Mikey are all awake and gathered around their guitar-tree. Frank makes the others open their gifts first. Gerard and Mikey both get Starbucks gift cards from Ray, and Gerard also gets art supplies from Mikey and a comic book from Frank. Mikey's gift from Gerard is a Star Wars DVD set, and Frank gives him a new beanie. Ray gets guitar picks from Frank, hair conditioner from Gerard, and a voucher for movie tickets from Mikey. Frank only makes a move to open his own gifts once the others have opened all of theirs.

The first thing Frank opens is from Ray, and it's a guitar strap with Frankenstein faces on it. Gerard's gifts turns out to be guitar picks, and Mikey gives Frank a set of spare strings. The final box is big, slightly bigger than the guitar-tree itself, and the label says that it's from all three of them. Frank grabs onto one side to move it towards him and is surprised at the weight behind it.

"What the fuck," he mutters, and starts tearing away at the paper. Underneath is a large rectangular box, without any type of markings on it. The top and bottom are both heavily taped up, so Ray hands Frank his pocket knife to open it. Once the tape's been cut, he pulls the box open, only to be met with a lot of crumpled news papers. He starts pulling it out, and stops short when he sees what looks like a headstock underneath. "What the fuck!" He screams.

There is, in fact, a guitar inside the box, white and brand new. "You guys fucking didn't!"

"We did, Frankie," says Gerard, and Frank launches himself across the room to hug him, still holding onto the neck of the guitar.

"I can't believe you guys. You didn't have to get me a guitar, I was fine with Ray's."

"Bullshit, you were, Frank! Besides, Christmas is a time of giving, and we're giving you a fucking guitar."

For the next hour before Mikey, Gerard, and Ray have to go to their families' Christmas dinners, Frank is a whirlwind of thank you's, in between messing around on the guitar. He's somehow gotten it into his head that he has to name his guitar, and within five minutes of receiving it, he's deemed it "Pansy." He seems to be plotting to cover it in stickers, too, or at least find some to spell "pansy" out on the front of the guitar.

At some point, Gerard looks over at Mikey, only to find him staring after Frank, a smile on his face. He smirks a bit, and it's at that moment that Frank launches himself onto Gerard's back again. "Seriously, Gee, thank you so much?"

"If you're gonna thank anyone, thank Mikey. He's the one who came up with the idea to get you a guitar." Actually, it was Ray who thought of it, when Frank was improving too fast not to warrant his own guitar, and because Ray's music store job ensured them a discount. Frank doesn't need to know that though.

As soon as he's under the impression that Mikey's the one he should be grateful to, Frank peels himself off Gerard and moves over to Mikey instead. Mikey just shoots Gerard a glare over Frank's shoulder as Frank babbles on into his ear.

Gerard pretends not to notice his brother's attempts at killing him with the Force.

* * *

 

By February, Frank has made a habit of playing guitar on street corners and in shitty bars. He doesn't make much cash out of it, but he does make some. His first time playing with a band was when he filled in for a friend of Ray's, and he used to cash to get his first tattoo; a jack-o'-lantern on his back, between his shoulders. He doesn't have enough money for the coloured ink so he just gets it monochrome instead. It takes about a month to heal, and in the meantime, he's diligent about taking care of it to be sure it doesn't infect.

Once the tattoo has healed, Frank begins thinking up ideas for more. He's also been thinking about getting some piercings, but he isn't sure which he'll do first.

But, one day near the end of February, Mikey does a double take when he gets home because Frank's gotten all his piercings at once. One in each earlobe, with plain ball studs. On the lower left corner of his lips, there's a third ball stud. He's also got a ring through his right nostril. Mikey almost falls over. "Holy shit. Do you even know how to take care of those?"

Frank grins at him. "Yeah, the guy at the tattoo parlour made sure I knew how to clean them and shit. Even gave me some stuff for me ears, but for my lip it's apparently best to just rinse it with warm salt water."

Frank, for his part, doesn't complain about getting used to the piercings, even as he has to be careful of his piercings when he changes shirts or when he accidentally bites his lip too close to the new stud. If he's diligent about the care of his first tattoo then he's meticulous about making sure his piercings heal properly. He cleans them every morning when he gets dressed and he cleans his ears and nose again every night before he does to bed. After every meal, he rinses his lip piercing. He moves his studs and nose ring around just enough that they don't fuse while they heal, but avoids touching them for any other reason.

It takes six weeks for his ear piercings to heal, and when they do, he changes the studs. He bought them from a store someone he played with recommended, and they were part of a package of about six pairs of earrings. Three pairs are studs made to look gold, silver, and black. The other three pairs are captive rings.

Mikey doesn't notice the new earrings at first, and for some reason it rubs Frank the wrong way that he doesn't notice. Since Christmas, he's had this weird fixation on Mikey, which he figured would go away in time, but so far it hasn't. He doesn't really know what to make of it. All he understands is that he really likes Mikey. Frank also really likes Gerard, Ray, and playing guitar, but the way he really likes those things is different to the way he really likes Mikey. It's been getting worse lately, too. He's been thinking of bringing it up with Tandy when he next visits her.

At first, Frank thought his interest in Mikey was like when one of the fae get fixated on something. He's had his own fixations like this in the past as well, like when Tandy got him a copy of Catcher in the Rye for his fifteenth year. (Sixteenth birthday, he corrects himself. The human concept of age still confuses him a bit.) Frank waits for that interest to fade, especially when Mikey is being difficult, having strong emotions or doing unpleasant things. Frank waits for his amusement with Mikey to vanish, and it does, but at the same time, it doesn't. He gets this feeling, in the pit of his stomach and in his chest and his lungs when Mikey does something endearing. When Mikey is miserable, Frank wants nothing more than to try to help. If Mikey does something stupid, Frank laughs at it for longer than necessary, and pokes fun at Mikey about it. When Mikey is more stone faced than usual, more distant, Frank silently grieves for him, does what he can to help but stays out of Mikey's way as much as he can.

He doesn't know what to do about the fluttering in his chest, or the blood that rushes to his cheeks, or the urges he sometimes gets to hug Mikey never let go, to hold him down and pound him into a mattress. He doesn't want to tell Mikey because he doesn't know if this is good or bad, and if he can't tell Mikey, he can't tell Gerard either. The fae never told him about this so he doesn't know how much they might be able to help, and Ray is a changeling, so he probably knows as much about human stuff than Frank does.

Frank goes to visit Tandy in April, as the last of the snow melts. Gerard has just turned 26 the day before, in Mikey and Frank's living, singing Smashing Pumpkins songs and throwing bits of frosting at his brother because his name was misspelled on the birthday cake. Frank had gotten frosting in his own hair when Mikey tried to fight back, but smashed his piece of cake against Frank's head in a true show of horrible aim. Ray had laughed so hard at the three of them that he fell off his chair and hit his elbow against the coffee table.

It's weird, walking into the woods on his own with the purpose to go back to visit the fae. Well, to visit Tandy. He told Mikey he'd be back before it got dark, and if he goes to see Zenivrah and Eralne he knows he'll stay until at least nightfall, if not longer. The walk up to Tandy's north gate seems long, longer than even it did when Redushut took him to Ray's back on All Saint's Day. He makes it, though, and has to take a moment or two to look the house and the yard and the fence up and down. It feels like the last time he stood before it was in a different lifetime.

Tandy screams when she sees him. "Frank, what happened? What did those awful humans do to you? There's iron in your nose and your ears! And on your lip!" She seems determined to work herself into a frenzy, but Frank is quick to rectify the situation.

"Tandy, calm down," he laughs, "it's not iron, it's steel! It's perfectly safe, I promise you. And I did this to myself. They're called piercings, a lot of humans have them now. I have a pumpkin on my back, too." It takes a bit of convincing before Tandy is willing to touch Frank's piercings to know for sure that they're safe, but she finds the jack-o'-lantern immensely fascinating.

"They just drew it on your skin? And it's going to stay there forever?" She asks. The last time a human inhabited her house, tattoos were taboo.

"Yeah. It hurts a bit, but not too bad. Like getting scratched up that time I fell climbing Eralne's tree?" Tandy nods. Frank had had scabs down his arms and chest and face for weeks after that, all because he'd been too stupid to realize the branches were slick with ice.

For a while after that, Tandy sidetracks Frank by updating him on the happenings among the fae while he was gone, and asking him about his life with the humans. He tells her about Ray, the changeling with only one human relative, and about Gerard and Mikey, and some of the bands he's played with. He's also proud to tell her that the piece of tortoise shell she gave him turned out to be an old-fashioned guitar pick, and how amazing Ray had found it when Frank showed him. Frank has played Pansy using the tortoise shell pick on rare occasions when he feels he needs extra luck, or if he's playing a new song for Mikey, but for the most part he just uses the ones Gerard gave him. Eventually, there's a lull in the conversation, and Frank decides to take his chance to ask.

"Tandy, what do you know about human relationships?"

Tandy thinks for a moment. "I know a few things, I suppose. There a few different types of relationships. They have fixations, like ours, and sometimes call it by the name of 'love'."

Love. Frank has heard that word a few times, in some movies and TV shows. Mikey and Gerard will tell each other that they love each other sometimes, too, when one is being particularly moody and the other tries to cheer him up. He's never really had a clear explanation of love, although Ray had told him once that the love Mikey and Gee shared was different than most other types.

"They're brothers, and really close ones too," Ray had told him. "I don't think there's anything in the world they love more than each other, and nothing they wouldn't do to save each other." Apparently, most siblings aren't half as close as the Way brothers, which Frank doesn't think makes any sense.

"Love is a complicated thing among humans. They'll find someone they love, and sometimes they stay together until the only thing they can do is yell and hate and hurt each other. Sometimes, when this happens, they'll leave each other, but sometimes, they can't. A common tradition among humans is to marry someone when you think you love them, and that love has lasted for a considerable amount of time.

"I remember once, a couple of humans who were married who lived here. They were married young, and grew old together. From the time they had children to the time the woman died, they were always yelling, always angry. The man often took up with some of the household staff, too. When the woman died, the man celebrated for days behind the backs of his children. Within a month, he remarried to the governess, and after a few months, they did the same thing as he'd done with his first wife. He died before his second wife, though."

Frank really hopes that what he feels for Mikey isn't love, then. He doesn't want that. He doesn't want to hate Mikey. "Can love be happy?"

"At the beginning. A few months, maybe years. I've never seen it last any longer, although one of the Queen's guard claimed that she'd seen two humans who remained in love all their lives. None of the others could ever prove that what she was saying was true. Why do you ask?"

So Frank tells Tandy about Mikey, the things he does to Frank and about his thoughts and feelings. Tandy tuts at him.

"Are you sure there isn't any iron in those piercings of yours, Frank? Or maybe you're getting sick again, humans carry all sorts of diseases."

"I'm not sick, Tandy. I promise. I just, I don't know what to do about Mikey?"

"Maybe it's a curse he's put on you? Did you slight him recently? Although you don't look cursed," Tandy says, leaning in closer to Frank's face.

Maybe it was a bad idea to ask her about this, Frank thinks.

* * *

 

Because his talk with Tandy leaves him more confused and scared than he'd been before, Frank decides to try another angle in his plan to find out exactly what it is Mikey is doing to him.

Since he doesn't feel asking other fae will help, Frank turns to Ray. If love does turn out to be as dangerous as Tandy says, he knows going to Gerard could be dangerous, and going to Mikey would be the worst thing he could do. The first opportunity Frank has to ask Ray is when they're both at the music store. Ray is working a shift, but it's mid-afternoon on a Monday, so there's currently no customers in the store. Frank is sitting on the counter while Ray stands behind it, putting price stickers onto packs of bass strings.

"I think I might be in love with Mikey," Frank says, and Ray chokes on air. It takes him a few seconds to catch his breath, and then he turns to Frank, face red and anxious.

"You what?!" He squeaks, his voice rising higher than usual. "What the fuck?!"

Frank repeats, "I think I might be in love with Mikey. I dunno. I get all weird when I see him, and when he's not around he's always in my head? And I think I wanna fuck him."

Ray is so red-faced now that he looks like a tomato with bushy hair. Frank didn't know a changeling could get this red. Even Ray's ears are red. "I am not prepared to have this conversation right now," he chokes out, and then Ray disappears into the back room. Frank stays on the counter, because he's not allowed back there but he can't leave. Ray brought him here, and it's too far to walk back to the apartment from here.

Eventually, Ray comes back, looking considerably less red. "Okay. So, do you wanna fuck Mikey, or are you in love with him?"

"I don't know. Both, maybe? I don't know what to do, though."

"You could start by telling Mikey, and work from there?" Ray suggests. Frank shakes his head.

"No, I can't do that."

If Ray were closer to the counter, he'd probably bang his head against it. As it is, he brings his head down a bit before snapping it back up. "And why the hell not, Frank?"

"I don't want him to end up hating me in a few months. I asked Tandy the other day about love, and she told me-"

"Frank! Do me a favour, and forget what Tandy told you about love. While you're at it, forget about whatever you've seen or read because if it's from the TV it's just straight up wrong and if you've gotten anything from online, then that's about as accurate as calling me a human."

Frank shuts up, and pushes Tandy's love advice out his mind. He gives Ray his full attention, and nods at him. Ray starts talking again after Frank's nod.

"Alright. I need you to listen to me for five minutes, alright? Love is a complicated thing and even if I tell you what I know, I might get stuff wrong, and I have no way of knowing how you as a person might experience love. Keep that in mind, alright?

"Love starts when you really like someone, and those feelings or really liking get deeper and stronger. If your love for someone is returned, usually you'll start dating, which is spending time together and getting to know each other. If you're dating long enough, you'll probably move in together, or get a pet together, or maybe even eventually get married. Sometimes, after you're married, you stay together for the rest of your lives, and sometimes, you fall out of love so then you get divorced."

Frank nods again. This all seems abstract, but he's trying to take it as seriously as Ray is treating it.

"If the person you're in love with doesn't love you back, or you can't be together for some reason, usually people will try to move on. They might distance themselves from the person they're in love with, or try to find a new person to distract them until their feelings for the other person go away. Do you understand that, Frank?"

Frank does, or at least he thinks he does. He can't really distance himself from Mikey, though, doesn't want to, so that leaves him one option. "So, you're saying that I should find someone new, to distract me from Mikey until my feelings for him go away?"

Ray winces. "Jesus Christ, Frank, no! You should see the way Mikey looks at you, man, it's ridiculous. What you need to do is tell Mikey how you feel the second you see him."

Which is exactly the opposite of what Frank ends up doing.

* * *

 

Frank plays a show with a buddy of his, James Dewees, a few days after his talk with Ray, and the bar they're playing is packed. They're only opening tonight, but their set is fun, and Frank decides to stick around for a while after he's done helping with the load out.

There's this one girl in the crowd who'd caught Frank's eye as he played, and once he joins the pit, she finds him. She's about Frank's height, with short red hair and brown eyes. She tells him that her name is Jamia, and he buys her a drink. They talk for a while, and she's an interesting person. Frank thinks that if he weren't in love with Mikey, he might really like her.

Still, though, he ends up taking Jamia home with him. They make out against his bedroom door and eventually fall into bed. The fucking is enjoyable, and if he had it in him, Frank thinks he'd try for a round two. He does get Jamia off a few more times, though, before they both finally crash.

In the morning, Jamia is already gone by the time he wakes up, but she's left him her phone number on a piece of paper on the bedside table. Frank thinks maybe he'd like to try being friends with her. The bedroom reeks of sex, and Frank probably doesn't smell much better himself when he stumbles out, on his way to shower. Mikey is sitting on the couch, and when he looks at Frank there's a weird look in his eyes that disappears after a moment, when Mikey's usual blank stare comes back.

"Good night?" He asks, but doesn't say anything else. Frank frowns as he studies Mikey for a moment longer, then moves to resume his path towards their shower.

Frank can't think of what that look might have meant. Maybe Mikey didn't like that Frank brought someone home last night? But that wouldn't make sense, since Mikey has brought people back before too. Granted, that was closer to when they'd first moved into the apartment, and if he's being honest, Frank doesn't exactly remember when that stopped, but it's still hypocritical of Mikey if that's what the look meant. He can't really think of any other reason.

Frank brings a few more people back to the apartment, and each time, Mikey gets that look in his eye the next morning. He seems to get sadder every time, too, and it takes him a bit longer to cover it up. Frank honestly doesn't get it. What he does know, though, is that despite the friendship he's now got with Jamia, and no matter how pleasurable all his little encounters were, he still feels that fluttering feeling in regards to Mikey, and it hasn't slowed down in the least. Deeming this plan a failure, Frank decides to give up, and tries to think of another way of dealing with his feelings for Mikey.

* * *

The next course of action Frank tries is leaving little gifts for Mikey to find, in the hopes of expressing his feelings for him.

Mikey finds trinkets all over the place. A broken comb finds it way next to his hair straightener one morning. A few days later, there's a bent fork that's decidedly not Mikey's, right next to his plate when he sits down with a fresh cup of coffee. A chipped glass knight materializes between his Romero set. Hell, one day, he finds a ring in his pocket, about a quarter of an inch wide and made of some kind of red-orange stone. When Mikey shows the ring to Gee, he says it might be made of carnelian, but he isn't sure.

Mikey doesn't know what to do with the trinkets, so he leaves them among a bunch of random crap in his room, except for the ring, which he puts among his necklaces and bracelets to avoid losing it.

Now, the thing is, Mikey _knows_ the trinkets he keeps finding are from Frank. It's the only explanation for why Mikey keeps finding them around their apartment, but never outside of it. What Mikey doesn't know is _why_ Frank is leaving him these trinkets. He also doesn't know where Frank is getting them, but Elena once told Mikey that pixies have a tendency to steal small objects, so that's probably a good guess. After all, Frank has told Mikey before about growing up playing with the pixies. He doesn't know what exactly Frank might be trading the pixies for all these trinkets, though.

On a night where Frank is out playing a gig with Ray, Mikey broaches the subject with Gerard. Unfortunately, his brother doesn't really have many concrete theories either.

"Maybe Frank just really likes you," Gerard suggest. Mikey scoffs.

"Sure, Gee. The guy who doesn't understand the difference between friendship and romantic love _totally_ returns my feelings." Because Frank is an easy person to like, and Mikey finds him even easier to love. Sure, sometimes he's a bit much, or too angry, or too clingy, but it's _Frank_. By now, Mikey gets more worried if Frank doesn't immediately try to climb onto his back whenever he sees him.

"Frank totally knows the difference, Mikes. Ray told me the other that he had to literally spend like two hours explaining it to him."

Mikey almost has half a mind to ask Gerard why the hell Ray would give Frank a two hour lecture on love, of all things, but then the movie they're watching gets to one of the best parts and he sits up straighter on the couch, turning to give the TV his full attention.

* * *

 

It's when Mikey wakes up from a nap on the couch to find Frank's tortoise shell guitar pick on his chest that he decides to bring the subject up.

"You sure you don't want to keep this?" He asks, placing the pick on the table between them. Frank looks up at him, and there's something there, in his eyes, that makes Mikey want to reassure him that things are okay. He looks disappointed, maybe, with something else there too.

"I mean, if you don't want it, I can-"

"Frank." Frank seems to deflate the longer Mikey looks at him. "If you want me to keep it, I will, but I kinda wanna know why you're giving it to me in the first place."

"I'm in love with you," and fuck if Frank isn't blunt about it. The fae aren't exactly subtle about things, and usually Frank isn't either. "Or at least, I'm pretty sure I am. That I have been, for a while. I didn't really know what to do, and trying to get over you didn't help, and Ray's been bitching at me for a while to just grow a pair and tell you."

"So you started leaving me random items around the apartment," Mikey asks.

"I thought it would make it easier, to show you instead of telling you. That you would understand from a fucking rusty fork that I was in love with you and we'd just kind of mutual agree to be in love or whatever it is humans do. Fuck, I don't know."

Mikey moves his chair over, so that he's next to Frank at the table, and puts his hand next to Frank's so that he can grab it if he wants to. "You know, a human custom when you're in love with someone is to give them a ring as a way to ask them to marry you."

Frank blanches, just a tiny bit. "Shit, really?"

"Yeah, really. And maybe I'm an idiot, but if you had straight-up asked, I'd probably have said yes."

At this point, Frank seems to realize that Mikey's teasing him. "You're a moron, Mikeyway. A complete moron," he laughs. Mikey laughs too.

"Yeah, but I'm your moron."

* * *

 

At first, there isn't much of a difference between being friends with Frank, and dating Frank. He's still as clingy as an octopus, and he's still prone to getting mad at the world, and he gets a couple more tattoos over the summer with money from gigs. For his part, Mikey is the same too, still a scrawny, tall motherfucker with the world's best poker face and the most ridiculous hair Frank's ever seen. He still works his shitty job at a coffee shop, and he still watches horror movies almost every week with Frank on their crappy couch, and he still loses his glasses on his own fucking head.

But now that they're dating, they order less takeout and actually go eat at the restaurants instead. Whenever new horror movies start to come out in the fall, they go see them together and share popcorn and make out in the back of the theater in between nitpicking the movies and how they're not as good as the classics. For Mikey's birthday, Frank tries (and fails) to make him a birthday cake, and in the end they just stay in that night, making out lazily until it starts to get heated and they move from the couch to Mikey's bed. For Frank's birthday, Mikey goes with him to the tattoo parlour he's always talking about, and watches Frank get the letters spelling out Halloween across his fingers in black and orange, and then Mikey pays for it.

They're not above fighting, though, but then again, no couple really is. They have their fair share of minor disagreements, like when one of them forgets to take out the trash or do the laundry, or when they can't decide on a movie to watch so they end up just sitting on opposite ends of the couch in silence. Usually, their disagreements are resolved within the day, if not a few hours.

They have one big fight in November, which leaves them both reeling. They're a bit low on cash, because Frank hasn't played a gig in a few weeks and he's been too sick to go out to play on the streets- a stubborn cold that won't go away, nothing too big- and they barely made their rent on time. That leaves them with no money to buy groceries, and when Gee and Ray step up to help, Frank freaks.

"We don't have anything we can give," Frank argues, and Mikey scoffs.

"No one said we had to _give_ anything, Frank! They're just trying to help, you don't need to be so defensive about this."

They only escalate from there, and before anyone knows it, Frank's got Pansy on his back and the door slams as he leaves, which is about the moment Mikey's poker face breaks and he starts crying. Gerard stays behind with him while Ray goes chasing after Frank, but he's still angry when Ray finds him. He doesn't want to go back home to Mikey, and he doesn't even want to talk to Ray, but he eventually manages to lure Frank back to his house with him. Frank ends up staying a few days, first while he cools off, and then because he's afraid to go back and face Mikey, convinced he's still angry at Frank.

The thing is, Mikey _isn't_ angry at Frank. Stopped being angry at Frank the second he left with only his guitar and the clothes on his back. He's been a mess for days, worried that Frank might be out there somewhere, lost and alone, no matter how many times Gerard assures him that Frank's safe with Ray.

"What if he isn't with Ray, though, Gee? What if he's lost in the middle of the woods, with no heat and no shelter and no food?" Mikey is almost inconsolable, though Gerard does try.

When Mikey crashes and Frank's busy messing around with Pansy, Ray and Gerard deliberate. They eventually come up with a plan to get Mikey and Frank to talk, after a bit of thinking. Dewees asked Ray to fill in for a gig, but Ray manages to get him to agree to have Frank play instead. They're playing a reception for a younger punk couple at the local Knights of Columbus. Mikey actually happens to _know_ the couple who's getting married, from his brief stint at Eyeball, so Gerard convinces him to attend.

Gerard has to actually hold Mikey back so he doesn't run when he sees Frank playing, and after the set, he shoves Mikey towards him too. Frank had caught sight of him in the crowd but didn't want to risk another fight, so he doesn't actively seek Mikey out. Once they've caught sight of each other properly, though, it's like something changes, and before long, they've gotten things sorted out and are making out in a corner as the happy couple shares their first dance to a Fall Out Boy song.

"I fucking missed you," Frank admits, small and quiet against Mikey's neck. Mikey brings him up for a kiss.

"Missed you too. Let's never fight again?"

"Agreed."

And maybe it's inevitable that at some point, they'll disagree again, but for the moment, they're in a good place.

* * *

 

So the thing about Frank Iero is that he was raised by the fae. The changeling he was switched with died, and with that, his hopes of ever meeting his human parents. But Frank is happy nonetheless.

He's got amazing friends, and he gets to play guitar onstage for money, and then he comes home to find Mikey waiting for him. Sometimes, he's the one waiting at home for Mikey. They hang out, and they kiss, and they make love. They live their lives together, two individuals being individuals together.

Their apartment lease expires two years after they move in, so they find a slightly less shitty apartment to rent. The new place allows pets, and Frank is quick to take in a tiny chihuahua that he calls Peppers. At one point, Frank goes on tour with a band he's playing with and they let him take Peppers with him, so every night, Mikey gets a picture of their adventures. His favourite is one of Frank with a devious look and a red hoodie, Peppers' head popping up from the collar. That picture becomes his lock screen background for the new few weeks until Frank and Peppers come home.

Frank still doesn't really have any sort of way to prove to the American government that he exists, so when he asks Mikey to marry him three years after they first started dating, it's more a symbolic thing than anything. Gerard and Ray act like the proposal was basically the actual marriage, and celebrate with them. When Frank's fae friends find out, though, they take it a step further, and actually come up with a fucking wedding ritual of their own, based on various degrees of passing human knowledge. Mikey and Frank still go through with it, though, because they're totally engaged, no way they're gonna pass up a wedding.

It turns out that even Queen Nari is in on it, because when Frank and Mikey show up at Tandy's with Gerard and Ray in tow, she's the first one to greet them, sending Mikey and Gerard in one direction and taking Frank and Ray in the other. Frank and Mikey are already wearing their best clothes, but the fae still deck them out with all sorts of flowers and leaves before they lead them out to the backyard. Frank is led out first, and he walks side by side with Ray to where Queen Nari stands, waiting. She directs Frank to stand in front of her, just off-centered, and Ray moves to stand by his side. Then, it's Mikey's turn, and Gerard walks him down the makeshift aisle towards Frank.

"Today, we gather to see these two humans united," Queen Nari says. "Frank Anthony Iero, Jr., you were a child of the humans raised by the fae. When you left us, you find a new life, and someone to share it with. You have taken the first steps to be united with this man forever. Do you vow to be true, to cherish and love and protect this man, until the day you die?"

Frank beams at Mikey. "I do."

"Michael James Way," Queen Nari says, "you always knew your human nature. By the virtues of your history, you knew of the fae, and accepted this man as soon as he came to you. When he asked to be yours, you agreed, and now you stand before the fae to be united with him. Do you vow to be true, to cherish and love and protect this man, until the day you die?"

If Frank didn't know better, he'd guess Mikey was shaking. "I do."

"Then let us be your witnesses," Queen Nari says, "for you to proclaim your love of each other, and that you should both promise to be there for all your lives. I now proclaim you to be bound, together as one, until the end of your days."

Frank and Mikey crash together. In that moment, Frank decides that kissing Mikey feels like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> I think one of the weirdest things about writing this was just that Frank takes Tylenol after his first hangover, because I can't take Tylenol myself. I'm allergic to it. Oops. Also I actually cannot swallow pills either, hence why Frank can't in the fic.
> 
> Fun fact, writing a fake obituary for a character who isn't really dead is a bit of a mindfuck. Who knew?
> 
> Also, sorry if the dialogue is shit. I suck at dialogue. And every time a character asks a question I always wanna format it in the French way, where you have "dialogue here," asks character? Being bilingual kinda sucks sometimes. Grammar rules are confusing.


End file.
